


Battleforged

by greygerbil



Category: Original Work
Genre: Body Worship, Gentle Sex, M/M, Pseudo-Ancient Greece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:41:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26883820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Pyrros has served the god of war faithfully since childhood, but only when his days on the battlefield are over does he learn that his prayers were heard.
Relationships: Greek-esque God/His Human Lover, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 8
Kudos: 136
Collections: Yes Fest 2020





	Battleforged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



In the gloom of the temple at night, the red wine looked like blood as it poured from the stone vase in Pyrros’s hands into the flat basin at Nikostratos’s feet.

“I thought I would bring a different sacrifice. I have spilled much blood in your honour already,” he murmured.

When the vase was empty, Pyrros sat down on the cold ground in front of the statue, wincing as he did. His hip ached worse some days than it had years ago when the spear had just pierced it and his left knee was almost completely stiff now. His right shoulder had never healed from the damage taken at the Battle of Etakos and after decades of carrying the heavy wooden _aspis_ , his back was always tense.

Since he had been a green boy of twelve, he had fought in countless wars protecting the borders of the Iretreian League, and now, a few years short of fifty, he had the scars, lasting injuries, and grey strands in his dark hair to prove that he hadn’t spent his life idle. All these years, he’d killed with Nikostratos leading his spear and defended knowing that his god helped him hold his shield steady, but he had very rarely had the time to visit his temples.

That was not the sort of god Nikostratos was, though. He preferred his devotees out in the field, strategising, fighting, honouring their god of war the way a warrior should. As polemarchos, Pyrros had been able to do so. Now he had been sent home with honours and well-wishes and the satisfaction of knowing most of the greater wars of his time had been settled in the League’s favour. It still felt like defeat.

“It’s not right,” Pyrros said through gritted teeth, looking down at the wine in the basin. These were words that had echoed in his head from the first when it became obvious he would have to put his weapons down, but he had not shared them with anyone. His most intimate thoughts had always only been for Nikostratos to hear. “A soldier should not grow feeble and old in a bed. I never asked to live to eighty. I lost many worthy friends on battlefields, I could have joined them.”

“Perhaps Nikostratos has other plans for you.”

Pyrros sat up straight, hand going to the dagger at his hip. However, the hooded figure he saw over his shoulder lingered only in the doorway of the old temple, making no attempt to come closer.

“I didn’t expect to meet anyone out here at this hour,” Pyrros said, keeping a tight grip on the hilt of his weapon. “Be that as it may, stranger, Nikostratos is finished with me. I can only serve him in a temple now.”

If the man was a mercenary sent to kill him, then Pyrros would not mind whichever way their meeting went. He’d end one more dishonourable cutthroat in Nikostratos’s name or he would die at the feet of the god who had led him through his life as Pyrros’s ultimate _strategos_. On the other hand, if the man was just a pilgrim himself who had stumbled over the old shrine, long replaced by a more glorious one within the confines of the city and only kept by the peasants, then Pyrros would simply wait him out. He had given his life to fight for his god and the League. There was nothing waiting for him in the empty house that had been designated as his own. It was a friendly gesture by the citizens’ assembly, but his home was in a tent.

“Some temples need fiercer guardians than priests,” the stranger answered.

There was movement at the corner of Pyrros’s eyes, but not from the stranger. It was, in fact, the roughly-hewn dragon, Nikostratos’s fearsome companion animal, which coiled its snake-like form about the statue’s legs and now pushed its flat snout closer towards Pyrros. Pyrros stared at the stone creature in shock.

Old reflexes sharpened in many a fight had taught him not to ignore the small for the great and so the rustle of fabric behind him still caught his attention, too. He whipped his head around to find the stranger had rid himself of his robe and stood now in brightly polished golden armour. His form, too, had changed. His short black curls almost reached to the ceiling as he was easily two heads taller than Pyrros. His bearded face was somehow ageless, with the wild eyes of a youthful young soldier – in fact, they were the colour of eager flames springing up from dry kindling – and the wise mien of a learned general. He carried a spear and a shield with a dragon etched in rich silver and bronze on its front.

“Rise, Pyrros,” he commanded.

Through the awe, Pyrros barely felt the pain in his old bones anymore as he got to his feet, standing to attention before his god.

“You look surprised,” Nikostratos said with his voice like an avalanche growling in the mountains. “You have seen me before, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Pyrros said truthfully. He’d known, then, who he was. His height, the fire eyes, and sometimes the roar of a dragon somewhere in the distance – they had given it away when Nikostratos watched them from the tip of a cliff overlooking the clash of armies, or suddenly seemed to be whirling on the battlefield among the soldiers. “It seemed prideful to be too certain of your support, though. It could have been my mind playing tricks on me.”

The god of war supported the valiant, the cunning, and the able. Those who wanted him to fight their fights for them would see him turn his back on them.

Nikostratos grinned. “You’ve always understood me, Pyrros. I know, for I have seen much of you.”

He stepped past him and picked up the bowl at the feet of the statue, lifting it to his lips to drink. When he had emptied half of it, he handed it over to him.

The wine tasted of iron. Pyrros wondered if it had actually turned to blood in the hands of the fearsome god, but did not ask nor truly care. He put the bowl down again after he had emptied it. Red wine had always been the sacrifice people made to Nikostratos outside of their prey in battle – a toast to the fallen and to those still standing for now, they would say.

“I didn’t know you were watching.”

“Be happy. It’s usually a good thing for mortals when we keep our meddling to a minimum,” Nikostratos said languidly. “You were fascinating. A warrior with the muscle, the heart, and the head.”

“Then why not come earlier?” Pyrros asked matter-of-factly. “I was that, but now I am only an old man.”

“You had matters to attend to among the mortals that you cared about, people that needed your help. Why keep you from them?”

Nikostratos had been looking at the snake he had moved around his own crude statue, but now he turned to Pyrros. His gaze had gotten even brighter, his eyes like the hot coals in the braziers that Pyrros had lit. A shiver went down Pyrros’s spine.

“You are right that I did, great one. Yet I still don’t know what I can do for you.”

“I just wanted to meet to you.”

Nikostratos took Pyrros’s jaw in his hand and turned his head to him, making him look up. True to what one would expect of a creature of such magnificent power, master over the boiling blood of battle, he hid not the passion on his face and Pyrros suddenly knew the attention had not been for his prowess alone – though if there was a way to first gain Nikostratos’s curiosity, that was certainly be it.

As a god, he could have picked Pyrros up like a plaything and taken whatever he wished, but clearly a choice was put before him. Pyrros did not have to think on it long. Nikostratos had already been his partner all through his life. To lead his people in war, he had foregone a family and a profession and education outside of the military. He’d given Nikostratos his body and his mind and he only regretted that he had not been able to finish his time on earth how a warrior should without resorting to deliberately throwing his life away into the enemies’ weapons.

So he placed his calloused fingers over the arm of his god. Nikostratos waved his free hand and the stone dragon abandoned his statue, slithered over the ground, and sat up its long body as if to strike its foes, blocking the doorway.

“This won’t shield us from view,” Pyrros noted.

“Unlike some of my relatives who pretend to be faithfully married as they leave their half-god bastards all over creation, I have no reason to hide,” Nikostratos said with a smirk. “Do you?”

Indeed, he did not, for he was to be honoured by his god with his presence. Pyrros got on his toes to put his hands in Nikostratos’ neck and urge him downward, not foolish enough to believe he could forcefully compel him, but applying what strength he had nevertheless, for it was in his nature to try.

Nikostratos did not force him to dangle of his neck like a child, but instead knelt to lay him down on the cool stone floor – or that was what Pyrros expected to feel, for instead there was robust, rough-spun wool, the sort that would cover the ground in a tent. He wondered if Nikostratos had chosen it for his sake or if Nikostratos simply pulled ideas from what he knew best and just happened to be a much grander piece cut from the very same cloth as Pyrros.

Such thoughts blew away the motionless reverence that had taken hold of him, though perhaps that was foolishness in itself. One should be afraid of the god of war, but Pyrros did not worry about death and even Nikostratos could not bring worse upon his enemies. He would dare this.

He ran his hands up into the dark curls on Nikostratos’s head. His god’s kisses were given with a burning force that Pyrros was enraptured by. His skin was warmer than a human’s and Pyrros wondered if the fire in his eyes was just a window into a body filled with living fire. He let his hands run over corded muscle and strained tendons, touched the armoured plates and the leather battle-skirt. He gripped him firmly for it was what he was used to from short trysts behind tents and Nikostratos did him the same honour, though surely adjusting the strength of his grasp as to not snap Pyrros’ mortal bones.

Nikostratos tore the chiton he wore off of him, easily ripping through the loose cloth, and Pyrros cared not since it meant he did not have to interrupt himself from kissing Nikostratos’ heated skin and enjoying his broad hands on him. Surely even Nikostratos’ wanton siblings, the god of love and lust and the goddess of wine and abandon, could not have given touches so searing.

Now that Nikostratos had uncovered him, his hands were drawn to the scars on Pyrros’s shoulder, over his hipbone, at his knee.

“I find there is some bravery to humans which gods cannot claim,” he said. “If my body was so breakable, would I still go to war?”

“The giants of old could have crushed you, it is told.”

“That is true.” Nikostratos traced the twisted skin with something that felt like veneration, however odd that seemed from a god directed at a mere man. “I suppose I need another real scuffle with my family to remind me what it is like. Though when the gods fight, humans die.”

“When humans fight, they die, too,” Pyrros gave back flatly.

Nikostratos chuckled.

“Your kind always seem to be dying regardless, yes. I am glad you did not.”

And he pulled Pyrros into another kiss, hauling his body up into his arms. Pyrros reached under Nikostratos’s battle skirt and squeezed the thick cock that tented the rough leather.

“Did you ever skew the battle in my favour, great one?” he asked quietly.

“There have been a few directionless flails of some sword and errant arrows that I led another way, the vagaries that cut short promising lives for no reason. However, you got my attention because you really did not need me.”

His hands ran up to his back and Pyrros leaned into them as he squeezed their hard cocks together. Yes, he could live with that knowledge. It was good to be certain that his prayers had not been in vain; but he also did not consider himself just a weapon wielded by Nikostratos.

His god leaned forward and covered Pyrros’s throat with his mouth, grazing it with his teeth. Pyrros had expected Nikostratos to be more violent, would have gladly taken the pain from his old aches if he were, but Nikostratos was mindful of them.

 _Of course._ He was not only the god of wanton bloodshed, but of strategy, of battle sense. If his goal was to make Pyrros enamoured, he was working the right plan.

Pyrros’s hand sped up, his legs tightening around Nikostratos’s thighs on which he sat. The cold night air should have been uncomfortable, but the heat that came from Nikostratos’s body was more soothing than sitting by an open camp fire. He urged Nikostratos’s head up, for a moment forgetting he was with a god, just seeing the handsome, beloved man, and kissed him while he spilled his seed all over the precious gold of his armour.

Nikostratos smiled his wicked, wild smile and grabbed his own cock, pushing it against Pyrros’s hard, naked stomach, rutting against him as he got himself off. Pyrros’s blunt nails drew lines in his bronze skin that disappeared almost immediately, as if injury could not hold on his body. He came over Pyrros’s chest.

While Pyrros was catching his breath, Nikostratos showed no such weakness. He swiped him off the ground and put him back on his feet and as Pyrros looked down on himself, he saw there was no evidence of their meeting, the seed already disappeared by some magic.

“This was not how I expected the ritual to go,” Pyrros said, picking up his torn chiton.

“Put that away, Pyrros. It’s not fit for a soldier.”

“I’m not fit to be a soldier.”

But before he had finished speaking, he stood clad in a leather cuirass and matching _pterugas_ , worked with fine metal embellishments that belonged to no army Pyrros had ever seen.

“Leave that to me. The water nymphs of the Marian sea owe me a favour for keeping pirates out of their homes. Their touch has healed Myron when his men chopped off his head and threw him overboard. Your injuries should cause them no headache.”

Pyrros’s heart jumped in his chest. “You will help mend me?”

“Yes, but not to throw you on another battlefield for humans, where I only have to give you up to the sisters of the Underworld eventually. If you wish, I would keep you with me.”

Pyrros looked at him with wonder, but Nikostratos only waved the stone snake back to its former place and led him outside. Two tall horses were tied to the trees there. Nikostratos jumped on one’s back and Pyrros knew to take the other.

Then, they rode with the wind.

Pyrros clawed to the horse’s neck as he was swept away in the air, but he did not call Nikostratos for help and he did not let fear overtake him. If Nikostratos deemed him worthy to ride with him, he would prove him right even as his stomach seemed to fall to his feet as the ground raced along far away under them.

They landed, finally, on a steep hill overlooking scattered farmlands and sparse woodland. Behind them stood a temple much grander than the one they had left, but much older, too, beaten by the weather, overgrown with ivy.

“This temple contains Tarsus, the sword I used to fell the giants in the battles of old,” Nikostratos said. “Many a human and unwise lesser spirit has tried to steal it. If you still wish to fight, I need a guardian who has my trust.”

To be allowed dominion over Tarsus was an honour a mortal could not expect. It seemed that Pyrros had impressed his god more than he even could have thought in his most prideful moments. However, there was a reason such a thing would not ordinarily be entrusted to a frail human.

“What if I die and fail your task?”

“I may have already thought of an argument to calm the dread sisters of the Underworld and let them turn a blind eye.” Nikostratos placed his hand on Pyrros’s shoulder. “After all, I do not plan to give you up as soon as a short human life is over. If you agree to be in my temple and serve me again for the rest of your life and many more years, then I will serve you, too, as your man. We will make this our fortress.”

Pyrros looked between Nikostratos and the temple.

“Then I will need a weapon,” he said with a smile.

Nikostratos pulled him in for another kiss.


End file.
